So. Am in Santa Monica, Los Angeles. Am curled up on a sofa in front of a real fireplace in the lobby of the hostel here surrounded by other comfortable young travellers doing exactly what I am doing. Writing to the loving and (few) interested people back home.

I have had a great day. Yesterday Meghan and I wandered around until we were dead tired and it was near midnight at which point we joined a bunch of locals in front of a screen and watched the New York new year played at our midnight so our LA new year. The weirdness of this occurred to me when I realised that NY's NY was a few hours before ours so playing it at our NY seemed a bit silly. Obviously LA's NY celebration is just too pitiful and/or boring to broadcast at NY. Shame. Ah well. The town was littered with drunk bodies, proper stereotypical California Gurlz in shorter than short dresses, higher than high heels, 3cm thick layers of make-up, wigs and SUNGLASSES(yes, at night.), guys rolling around messing up their suits and random fire engines tearing around the place to chuck cold water in the faces of the unconscious and every now and then, whisk one of them away from the festivities of mass drinking. I felt very young at age 20 yet also felt like a 30 year old as I realised that the behaviour that these 21+ Americans were showing is what we (well, normal Dutch people) did when we were 17. I felt like a child because I couldn't get in anywhere but like a parent as I felt like yanking the kids off the street and telling them to stop being STUPID and to drink water and just dance instead of wasting pints (literally) of money. Still, New Year is a good reason for a party so I'll let them off, haha. Anyway, conclusion: Meg and I went to bed :) I was tired as I had sat on a bus for 9.5 hours that day so we went back to the hostel and at 00.20 on the first of Jan 2012 I crawled into my silk sleeping sheet, pulled the blanket up to my chin, smiled happily and fell asleep. Lovely.

Maybe a fun in-between update; this hostel is AMAZING. I LOVE it. Meg and I are in a room with 8 beds and 8 massive lockers to keep stuff in. They are numbered per bed which is cool. We are sharing with 6 other girls, 2 Egyptian, 1 Asian, 1 Australian, 1 American and 1 other one.. they try not to mix gender too much which is nice. The showers are clean and decent, as are the toilets and rest of the bathrooms. The facilities are great. On the ground floor there is a lovely lobby which is where I am now, with an open fireplace, a big christmas tree and some lovely warm sofas and chairs. There is a big dining area with a pool table, vending machines and unlimited coffee and tea. There is a MASSIVE kitchen with MASSIVE fridges and stoves and freezers and all that stuff (knives, forks, plates, pans, etc) where we can cook whatever, whenever for free. There are loads of plastic boxes so you just label your bag of food with name, room and the date and put it in one of the containers and nobody touches it. It's great! There are more baggage lockers, station-like ones for when you can't store your luggage in your room (like me after I've checked out on wednesday :p), there is a courtyard with comfy chairs and benches, a TV room with a huge tv and hundreds of free films, there's a computer area, a room with washing machines and there is FREE WIFI in all those public areas, not in the rooms, it doesn't reach that far but that's ok.. :) So yeah, it's great! There are about 50 rooms so about 700 beds. Filled with young travellers who like me, wander around in their socks and sweatpants and cook boring pasta with tomato sauce and cheese because they couldn't be bothered to spend more than 3 minutes in the MEGAHUGE supermarket 6 blocks down the road. I have come to HATE them. Forget what I said earlier about liking them.They're too big. They annoy me. Just give me a quarter of all the types of bread, please??? And why is everything super size? Smallest pack of pasta: 500g!!!!! Really???? In Utrecht we can get 200g studenty ones.. Here there are 80 times more types of pasta but no freaking small packs??? Was not impressed. Anyway, as you may have noticed, the hostel is amazing. Everything is nicely painted in bright colours and it feels warm and homey and the people are nice so yeah, it's all good :)

Santa Monica is NICE!!! Yesterday it was incredibly foggy, so much that we couldn't see the beach. We couldn't see further than about 10 meters through the fog. It was insane how foggy it was. We eventually found the beach (how can you struggle to find a beach you may wonder? Trust me, when you can't see anything, it's pretty hard.) We found the beach and suddenly saw colour looming up out of the gloom and realised we must be near the pier so we went there and the place was packed with people so that was nice. But today the fog had all cleared up and we could see the beach from miles off and it is gorgeous! Nice beach! We saw the whole pier, went on the ferris wheel just for funsies(damn you Manuel. I love that word. Funsies is awesome xD). Then we walked to Venice beach. There were muscle men and they were awesome. And the skateboarders and cyclists and roller skaters and bladers and weird performers and people :) It was fun :) But a LONG walk. It was warm enough in the sun to not want a jacket but the wind was chilly so wore jacket anyway :p We walked there over the beach by the water and back over the boulevard. Saw some show-offy guys playing beach volleyball and wished my little sister Aniela was there to smash the ball down and wipe the "I'm cute and sporty" smiles off their faces for a moment, haha.